Kick-Ass Review
Kick-Ass takes all the classic superhero tropes and turns them on their head, and what you're left with is a super-charged romp that's one part wish-fulfillment fantasy and one part fan-boy comedy. Forget x-ray vision, invisibility, or superhuman strength -- Kick-Ass is all about what happens when a 17-year-old teen with no powers, training, or meaningful desire to do so buys a wet suit and some riot sticks and begins his journey to becoming the ultimate champion: a superhero. Based on the graphic novel by Mark_Millar, director Matthew_Vaughn maintains a balancing act between ultra-violent recklessness and rabid teenage comedy. The film goes to all the extremes, but they're completely welcome, and in a sea of superhero movies that take themselves entirely too seriously, Kick-Ass breaks out and delivers a refreshing take on the genre that leaves the audience with a pleasantly visceral experience.
Dave Lizewski (Aaron_Johnson) is your average teenager, nothing special -- he hasn't been bitten by a radioactive spider like Peter Parker and he doesn't have gadgets like Batman; in fact, his only superpower is being invisible to girls. One day, while hanging with his friends at the local comic-book shop, Dave poses the pivotal question: "Why has no one ever tried to be a superhero?" He goes from nerdy teen dreaming of winning over his "Mary Jane," Katie (Lyndsy_Fonseca), to costumed not-so-super hero Kick-Ass. From there it's one crazed stunt after another, which leads to a back-alley beatdown that leaves him with screwed up nerve endings and a heightened threshold for pain -- the perfect plot point for the craziness that ensues. After video footage of a confrontation with gang members outside the local hangout goes viral, everyone knows his name, but trouble brews when nemesis Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) explodes onto the scene and Kick-Ass must maintain his identity, beat the bad guys, and win the girl.
Vaughn takes care to remind the audience that Dave is still a teenage boy with angst, hormonal yearnings, and clueless friends, so as his life in the real world becomes more engaging, his life as Kick-Ass becomes less relevant. Enter Hit-Girl, played by Chloe_Moretz, a trash-talking, butt-kicking, 13-year-old girl who could wipe the floor with the biggest of badasses. Trained by her rubber-suit-wearing father, Big Daddy (Nicolas_Cage), an ex-cop-turned-vigilante, this revenge-seeking duo stops at nothing to bring resident bad guy Frank D'Amico (Mark_Strong) to justice. The film is just as much about Hit-Girl and Big Daddy as it is about Kick-Ass. They fill the void when Dave is otherwise occupied, and some of the best scenes in the film are between the two.
Vaughn, along with screenwriter Jane_Goldman, establishes the anti-superhero universe early in the film, and as a result the audience expects them to maintain that sensibility throughout, but the film teeters back and forth between "this isn't a superhero movie" and "this is a superhero movie," and some points in the film get bogged down with endless backstory of minor characters that are better served in comic-book form. Still, Kick-Ass is just plain fun, and trying to figure out where it fits into the genre takes away from enjoying what it really is -- a ridiculously entertaining adventure that genre fans will love. The tagline says it all: "Be honest with yourself. At some point in our lives, we all wanted to be a superhero." For anyone who secretly wished to be one, this film delivers on that fantasy with a world where bad guys are real and superheroes are geeky high school comic-book fans. Alaina O'Connor, Rovi
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